On Parliament Hill

Last month the Liberal Government passed Bill C-76.

With this deeply troubling piece of legislation the Trudeau Liberals are seeking to reverse the election safeguards implemented by our previous Conservative Government.

We proposed and passed the Fair Elections Act to ensure greater integrity in our electoral system. Now, as they have in the past, the Liberals are seeking to undo that good work.

One of the ways this legislation weakens Canada’s election laws is by allowing a person to vote without having to show proof of citizenship. All they would need is a voter ID card – the cards sent to homes by Elections Canada prior to an election.

Former chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand told a Commons committee a few years ago that about 16% of the entries on the list of electors contain incorrect information.

To put that in perspective, in the last federal election 330,570 voter information cards were returned as “undeliverable” and 509,397 had to be corrected.

In 2015, Elections Canada also admits to having mistakenly sent 57,500 voter information cards to people who were not citizens. With the ability to use only a voter card as valid ID at the polls, many non-citizens could potentially vote.

Elections Canada admits that they have no way of tracking whether someone is a citizen before voting, describing the process as an “honour system”.

I believe the majority of non-citizens respect Canada’s laws and will continue to do so. However, there will always be a percentage who do not.

An additional 207,000 voter cards were sent to people who were deceased. Without having to show any proof other than a voter ID card there is also the potential that a person could vote more than once.

And this is what Justin Trudeau and the Liberals want to use as valid ID at the polls?

In the last federal election there were 22 ridings where the margin of victory was less than 1.5%. Close to home, in Elmwood-Transcona, the margin was only 51 votes. Even a small percentage of people voting illegally could have a profound effect on the outcome of next year’s federal election.

As one journalist put it earlier this week: “The idea that our election could be decided by people that don’t live here, that do live here but aren’t eligible to vote or that used to live here but are dead should worry us all. Unfortunately, we are governed by a leader who sees no problem with these issues, only opportunity.”

Canada’s Conservatives believe that we must do everything possible to maintain the integrity of our electoral system and we will continue to hold Justin Trudeau accountable when he fails to protect our democratic institutions.